Times Selection Excerpt

Q.
What exactly does a combat engineer do? And how does that dovetail with your poetry?

A.
I once was told that in World War II combat engineers had a life expectancy of 12 seconds in combat. Today, combat engineers build bailey bridges and rope bridges; they also blow up bridges, and they are responsible for laying minefields. In addition, combat engineers are trained to clear paths through minefields using a variety of methods from the Bangalore torpedo (a slender explosive device manually implemented into a minefield) to the Python Minefield Breaching System (a hose of explosives projected by a rocket across a minefield).

Like a combat engineer, a poet is aware of many things at once: narrative, musicality, line length, image, rhythm, syntax, etc. A poet is always looking for a balance of literary elements to keep the poem alive. For example, three long sentences in a row will leave the reader out of breath. Too many polysyllabic words can cause a reader to trip over his or her tongue. However, when a poet finds the right balance with concern to formal technique, the poem’s meaning has a better chance of being understood.

Q.
Your first book is out, and your father, a major in the Army National Guard, is about to go overseas. Tell me about that.

A.
My father has orders to go to Afghanistan, but he has seen “Bangalore” in print. I’ve been out of the military for seven years now, and yet the military is still a part of my life. My father’s father was a Green Beret who served in Korea. My brother-in-law and I served together for a while, and he’s been to the Middle East twice. A good friend of mine (he and I were enlisted together at Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri) served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am worried about my father, just as I have worried about my brother-in-law and my friends and fellow soldiers who were sent and continue to be sent overseas.

In many ways “Bangalore” exists between these juxtapositions, a father going to serve abroad, while the son stays home. It’s backward.

Q.
Given what you’ve become, do you feel a sense of exile?

A.
Exile is chosen. I have made decisions in my life to position myself to feel a sense of exile; therefore, yes, I feel it deeply. I often visit my brother in Hamilton, Miss. — a rural community whose lone grocery store recently closed down. My sister drives in from Memphis; sometimes my father will fly in from D.C. We throw darts (very competitively) or sing karaoke — something I should never do. We are all happy enough, but we know this will end, and it does. I return to Tallahassee. My father returns to D.C. My sister, Memphis.

Each time I return, I dredge up memories that are difficult to shake. Many of the poems deal with these feelings of exile. In “Waiting for Fire,” I am trying to “understand the rot,/a junkyard drowned in a rebel yell —” The poem ends with a couplet that I think speaks to this question: “Where am I in all of this nostalgia?/The river is a liar. It will give you nothing.” My relationship with my home is complicated. I may never fully understand it.

Q.
Given your roots, what does being a poet and a Ph.D. mean to you?

A.
It adds pressure to write well. I cannot become lazy. I come from a working-class background, and I don’t forget that when I am writing poems. I’m going to work, and I take pride in wanting to do the best job I can.

Visit the Poetry Pairings page to find out more about our collaboration with the Poetry Foundation, and to read ideas for using any week’s pairing for teaching and learning.